Eric J. Shelton/Reporter-News
Abilene High School students are filmed at Monks Coffee Shop on Wednesday for an infomercial that discourages underage drinking.

Editor's Note: April is alcohol awareness month. While there are many issues related to the abuse of alcohol, the Reporter-News chose to focus on underage drinking.For Melanie Seals of the Abilene Regional Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, one of the most significant challenges for her organization is getting people to admit a problem with underage drinking exists in Abilene.

That's why a survey of Taylor County high school students, conducted in 2011 by the Taylor Alliance for Prevention, is eye-opening for many, said Seals, director of prevention and intervention services with ARCADA.

Just over half — 51 percent — of local high school students who responded to the survey said that underage drinking was a problem in their community, she said.

Abilene High School principal Terry Bull wasn't surprised by those results.

"I think we're naive if we think it doesn't happen or that it's not out there for our high school students to be a part of," Bull said of underage drinking. "It's there."

Bull, like others, was particularly vexed by a part of the survey that puts significant blame on parents.

Of those surveyed by the Alliance for Prevention, 27 percent of the students said they had attended a party where alcohol was provided by a parent.

"There are so many things that can go wrong with that scenario," Bull said, saying he believed that while the ability to impose limits on oneself improves as one gets older, it starts with "parents imposing limits on you to help you realize something is the wrong thing to do."

But some adults view drinking as a rite of passage, "something that everyone is going to do," Seals said. Parents who provide alcohol to minors often take up car keys, refusing to let participants drink and drive.

While that may prevent one problem, she said, research has "shown for years that our brains aren't fully developed until we're in our 20s."

"So when you're underage and drinking alcohol, your brain and the rest of your body isn't able to handle it at the same level as a fully-mature adult," Seals said.

Many young drinkers don't understand when they "get a buzz," that feeling is "actually being drunk," she said.

"But they more they do it, the more often you do that, the more likely you are to develop a dependence and eventually abuse alcohol," she said.

And there are numerous other complications of underage drinking, unplanned pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases or any number of other behaviors that would be taboo if sober, that even high school-age students don't always take into account, she said.

"Once you become impaired by alcohol, you can get yourself into a (risky) situation — not just drinking and driving and alcohol poisoning and all of those possible physical effects," she said.

Terry Osborne, who leads an Abilene support group for juveniles struggling with alcohol and drug abuse, said that the consequences of drinking often don't seem as heavy for adolescents as they do for adults.

"They're not losing jobs and not losing families," he said. "It does seem fun — until you want to quit and you can't."

Osborne said that "factors within the home," from abuse to direct parental involvement, is a recurring theme among the young alcohol and drug users he sees in his weekly support group.

"Basically, the message that I often get from the juveniles is: That's what they're taught," he said. "Somewhere down the line, there are family members or close family friends that have shown them, kind of a learned behavior, if you will. Not always, but most of the time."

Young drinkers are often feel invincible, Seals said, which raises the potential for accidents or overdose.

"They feel, 'It's not going to happen to me, I'm not going to be a statistic,'" she said. "They don't feel like anything can bring them down and affect them."

But time and time again, Seals and others hear stories of young people killed in a car accident in which alcohol was involved, she said.

"It's sad because these are hard lessons to learn," she said. "But if can learn that lesson maybe we can prevent others from falling into that same situation."

Among other survey findings:

24 percent of Taylor County high school-age respondents said they first tried alcohol between 12 and 14 years old, while 18 percent said between 15-17 years old, and 12 percent said 9-11 years old.

Less than 1 percent were 18 or older when they tried their first drink.

56 percent of the students who said they had tried alcohol indicated that they continued to consume it.

21 percent of students who drink said they nearly always drink to the point of intoxication.

Nearly 47 percent of students surveyed said they had ridden in a vehicle with a driver who had been under the influence.

12 percent of those surveyed admitted to having driven while under the influence of alcohol.

Creating Awareness

Abilene High School counselor Cindy Darby said her school does many things to try to raise understanding about the pitfalls of underage drinking and substance abuse, including posters and participation in national awareness campaigns.

"But again, those are things that (many) kids don't consciously look at and think, 'Drinking is going to affect me,'" she said. "What helps more than anything is when they (students) can relate to someone their age."

AHS principal Terry Bull agreed, saying he believes the most effective communication about underage drinking often comes from students themselves.

"It's hard to say no when that time comes," Bull said, calling underage drinking a "dark cloud" that always potentially hangs over a school. "You can talk about it, you can preach about it, but to say no at the time that it happens, you have to know that people are behind you. And if it's student-driven, then it's so much more effective."

Such a connection is more likely to make students "think a little bit more" about the reality of alcohol abuse and its potentially deadly consequences, Darby and others said.

Alisha Castaneda, 18, a senior at AHS and student council president, agreed that students themselves have a significant opportunity to make a difference among their peers, starting with one-on-one talk.

"I know that I have talked to people before on a friend basis if I felt some type of concern for someone I'm close to who I know was going to those things (drugs and alcohol)," she said.

But Castaneda and other students have also actively taken aim at the issue, she said.

Though most recently focusing on texting and driving, for example, AHS' student government has in the past targeted teen drinking as a cause for concern, she said.

On Thursdays, the school's student council has drug and alcohol safety meetings, Castaneda said, often mining statistics to create posters that are put up around campus.

And students are encouraged to not drink or use drugs in more overt ways.

The school's prom committee, for example, is asking attendees to sign a contract that they won't drink the night of the dance, joining already existing efforts such as Project Graduation, designed to stem drinking, tobacco and drug use at that event.

And Bull said that any of a variety of student activities, including sports to academics, was potentially effective in stopping at least some students from drinking.

"Anything that you're involved in helps," he said.

Castaneda and another fellow AHS senior, Josh Edwards, 18, both said Wednesday that they have chosen to not drink throughout their school careers because of both personal expectations and the expectations of others.

"I have high expectations, and I don't ever want to be below the expectations I've set for myself and the expectations my parents have for me," Castaneda said. "I just know what it can do to a family — it can tear them apart."

The myth that there's "not a lot to do in Abilene" is often cited by many students looking for an excuse to drink, Edwards said.

"They say there's nothing to do, so they go do that instead," he said. "But I don't want to disappoint my friends and my parents. And I don't want to do something that will lead into other (potentially negative) things. So I just stay away."

Everyone's Responsibility

Ultimately, "everyone has a responsibility" in stemming the problem of underage drinking, ARCADA's Seals said.

"It's got to be everybody working together to provide a safe environment for our kids to grow up in," she said.

Parents "definitely need to be involved," she said.

"They need to know where their kids are, they need to see how they are when they come in the house at night,"she said. "You can tell if your teenager has been drinking."

Parents must also keep lines of communications open to their children, letting them know that they want to be involved while setting up clear guidelines and standards for behavior.

"And parents need to understand that it's illegal to provide alcohol to minors that aren't your own children," Seals said. "If you provide alcohol to a minor and something happens, then you are held responsible for that."

The punishment for making alcoholic beverages available to a minor is a class A misdemeanor, punishable by a fine up to $4,000, confinement in jail for up to a year, or both, according to the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission.

Beyond parents, the community — including store owners and clerks in businesses that sell alcohol — must check IDs and make certain they are not providing or selling to people who are underage, she said.

" ... When you sell to a minor you are held legally responsible for that," she said.

In Texas, sale of alcohol to a minor is a class A misdemeanor, punishable by a fine up to $4,000, confinement up to a year in jail, or both, according to the commission website.

Though students have a tremendous role in keeping their peers away from alcohol, schools, and those who work with them, still have much to offer, Seals and others said.

ARCADA has five different prevention education programs targeting schools, Seals said, using a "research-based curriculum" that can be targeted to anyone from first grade to 12th.

AHS' Darby said her role typically more "reactive" than preventive.

"We get kids referred to us after they get in trouble with drinking," she said. "They get in trouble legally or it can affect them mentally, and that's when they get referred to me. That's where the counseling services come into play, more so than prevention type stuff."

If Darby is aware of a student's problem, she can refer them to other counseling, treatment or intervention opportunities, she said.

"We also have ARCADA and (Abilene treatment center) Serenity House come in and teach, through our existing classes, about drinking and driving, decision making, positive choices and negative choices and the consequences for those," she said.

Social media may be another avenue as yet untapped to reach more students in ways that are meaningful to them, Darby said.

Stemming the tide

Osborne, the support group leader, said most youth attending his juvenile program come because of probation requirements.

"But what we're trying to do this year is really kind of promote the group," he said, "We think a lot of parents and others don't know it's available, so we're trying to put the message out there. You don't have to be on probation to attend our meetings."

Osborne said that he would like to see the pursuit of more funding to help area youth with drinking and substance abuse problems get help.

"I think Abilene has a very exceptional recovery community for adults for addiction," he said. "But here recently, there's been a lot of funding that's stopped. We need to find some funding to help these kids get some treatment."

Teens are often sent to agencies elsewhere, such as Dallas or San Antonio, but then find themselves somewhat stranded when they return, either because of a return to the same "shaky" home environment they left or because of a lack of available funds for aftercare options, Osborne said.

"There's not much aftercare in Abilene for adolescents," he said. "But outpatient and aftercare is the key."

Osborne said that great patience is required when helping anyone through a drinking problem, especially adolescents, who may have a difficult time kicking a habit.

"It's not what happened with the relapse, it's how you're going to respond," he said. "But I've got one kid that recently picked up 18 months of sobriety, which for a 16-year-old is huge."

And though the issue of underage drinking is complex and difficult, Seals said, there's no excuse to not fight the fight as diligently as one can.

"We make a little bit of headway, and sometimes we feel like we don't," she said. "But we just keep plugging at it."